Serious Sparkle YKTTW Discussion

Needs More Examples. Will be launched in a few days if more examples cannot be found so that the trope isn't forgotten.

The Serious Sparkle is a visual effect common to anime and manga where a character says something either ridiculous or incredibly obvious in an entirely serious manner, which is emphasized by a small sparkle which appears next to them. This is frequently lampshaded when another character notes the absurdity. As a comedic effect, it is of course more common to either the stranger characters or to less serious shows entirely, but it can be seen even during serious events as a moment of brevity.

Examples

Anime and Manga

Fairly common in Mahou Sensei Negima!. Even the serious 'ex' mercenary Mana gets to make one when lampshading the Sorting Algorithm of Evilin regards to the ominous tower they're storming. Though it ends up not working like that.

Hayate the Combat Butler employs this in many scenes, such as Nagi's sudden decision that she's going to skip school for a trivial reason to avoid having to compete in the sports festival.

Keima gets to monopolize these in The World God Only Knows whenever explaining that whatever plan he concocted is based off mimicking something he saw in a dating sim. Despite the sparkle, other characters are less than impressed.

Pretty much anything Might Guy or Rock Lee says from Naruto. Whatever they promise or declare is taken entirely seriously by them, but it's usually ridiculous or over-dramatic.

Vash in Trigun tends to be a lecherous idiot except when he's not. Whenever he starts hitting on women, the little sparkle appears and he starts hamming it up, keeping him from ever being taken seriously by the girl in question.

Fullmetal Alchemist. This trope has been passed down the Armstrong family line for generations!

Replies: 33

Your reply:

Five hats means that five tropers think it is ready to publish.

You are saying that you think this draft is ready to be published. That means the description is not ambiguous,
it doesn't duplicate an existing trope, there are at least three examples, and the title makes sense.

Is that what you meant to do?

You are saying this draft has a ready-to-publish hat it does not deserve and you are taking it back.

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